Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: Facebook, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and its COO Sheryl Sandberg, and its public relations people, and its engineers have lied. They have lied repeatedly. They have lied exhaustively. They have lied so much they've lost track of their lies, and then lied about them.
For some reason …

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

I don't take issue with the fact that he is Republican, it's that he's ignorant enough to continue to view Trump as anything other than a grifter. And, not even a good one, judging by all the indictments.

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

Yeah, keep bringing that half-truth/right-wing talking point up.

You are correct, he said that and it was not correct. The thought he was trying to present, however inarticulately stated (a rarity for him, as opposed to our current bozo-in-chief), was that there was nothing in the ACA that precluded folk from keeping their current plan and current doctor.

There was also nothing in the ACA that forced plans and doctors to keep their current patients... there has NEVER been such a rule. People got dropped before the ACA, and people will get dropped after the ACA. That is a business decision. The point was the plan wasn't taking away the existing structure.

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

> People got dropped before the ACA, and people will get dropped after the ACA.

The other fact that right-wingers love to conveniently ignore is that the ACA mandated a minimal cost-to-coverage ratio.

Translated into Trumpkin Language: the so-called insurance plan that you think you had and loved so much was, in fact, a scam. The monthly premiums and the yearly deductibles were too high, and the coverage offered was too restrictive and limited.

The ACA did indeed made these so-called health insurance scams plans illegal. Meaning, under the ACA, and for every plan offered, the insurance company must provide a standardized minimal coverage ratio to your out-of-pocket expenses for said plan.

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

>But politicians in general are the biggest liars of them all.

That is a totally unproductive and stupid attitude to have. Politicians's job is to get elected. If you've ever had to convince people of anything than you realize that you have to project some level of certainty in what you say. Some of it may very well be less than truthful. So, yes, it is a job where communication is highly scripted and has to fit the agenda. The agenda could be on the left or it could be on the right, but you will be getting political speech coming out.

Sometimes you get people who knowingly make a promise or a claim that they know in advance is wrong and it comes out later. It used to be that those politicians would get voted out of office.

But now you have people, like yourself, who actively hold all political actors as liars, all the time, regardless of their actual actions. That, to me, opens the gate to voter cynicism and stupid decisions. Why bother looking for a party with realistic policies? They all lie. Why bother assessing whether a given politician is honest or not? They all steal. Why vote for someone who proposes a hard road ahead rather than telling you what you what you want to hear? None of it means anything. Why vote out someone for underperforming? It doesn't matter, does it? Why examine

This level of angry irrational nihilism nurtures the kind of stupidity that has elected all sorts of losers and has the potential to elect many more. Syriza, in Greece, LePen in France, all the various incarnations of Putin in Russia. The biggest wanker of them all will remain unmentioned. It doesn't matter what you vote, as you long as you register your protest and anger, is your message.

You, and your kind, spend all your time telling how democracy is such a lie. And it is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Not (just) because of the politicians. But because too many people believe angry disillusioned cynical ranters like you and then abdicate any responsibility as informed voters to make wise choices. "We didn't really mean X, we were just angry".

Consider this to be a lefty rant if you want. It's not. The Republican party has in the past had great leaders. Some of the leftist populist politicians waiting in the wings would be as useless as tits on a bull.

But this persistent insistence that _everyone_ who considers public service is a scum is a plague. It is not what our societies and forebears have strived for, and sacrificed to achieve, over centuries. Since Americans respect the Founding Fathers so much, would you care to speculate what they would think of people with your outlook?

It is, truly, the Facebook level of civic engagement so it fits this article very well.

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

What?? You really think that highlighting a few contentious issues is enough to sway people's votes to a greater degree than the daily brainwashing from the local news?

Welcome to the Brave New World of Low-Brow Infotainment and Propganda Churnalism! Where nothing is true, everything is possible and Russians manage the Gilets Jaunes via Facebook Ads, and the world before TRUMP was just honky-dory and, like, totally liberal and harmonious and uncontentious.

"And next week Müller of the Political Police will deliver additional indictments."

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

You really think that highlighting a few contentious issues is enough to sway people's votes to a greater degree than the daily brainwashing from the local news?

Yes.

If some people get all their 'news' from red-top papers, shock jocks or farcebook/twatter and seldom or ever use reputable national radio and TV news channels or newspapers, then all they ever see is lies and biased reporting.

How can this not leave them with a distorted view of what's happening in the real world.

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

@ Martin

More worrying is that they will happily copy and paste even the most complete bollocks if it matches their perceived world view, and steadfastly refuse to even contemplate that any mainstream news article could be correct. It's these people that believe even the most absurd Infowars conspiracy, insisting that all other sources are lying when presented with overwhelming evidence.

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

> More worrying is that they will happily copy and paste even the most complete bollocks if it matches their perceived world view, and steadfastly refuse to even contemplate that any mainstream news article could be correct.

Which is why I would suggest that it is pointless to contradict or challenge a Trumpkin's world view.

Trump feeds them what they want to hear. That's all that matters to them.

They are inherently incapable of critical thought on their own, so they need an authoritarian figure to tell them what to think. That's why they'll only listen to Faux News or Infowars. These outfits tell them what to think, and the message is always delivered with authority.

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

"and steadfastly refuse to even contemplate that any mainstream news article could be correct."

Tin foil hatters turned "main stream media" into a pejorative and since Trump, "main stream media" or MSM as a pejorative has itself become mainstream. Those who use the term in a pejorative way really need to explain to the likes of me exactly what the MSM is. You see, I don't understand the term or which media outlets are covered by it. It's difficult to comment on Fox News since they pulled out of the UK market citing a lack of viewers It can't be The Onion because they have real reporters (or do they? no one knows!) Is El Reg MSM? Who gets to define which organisations are MSM and which are not? Is this another of those flexible definitions that varies to suit the whims and stance of the person currently ranting?

Re: Good article. Assuming TheRegister is clean with our data.

More worrying is that they will happily copy and paste even the most complete bollocks if it matches their perceived world view, and steadfastly refuse to even contemplate that any non-mainstream news article could be correct.

Facebook's shadow profile.

Your location can be pieced together from your shadow profile. This is a profile of you based on what your friends say about you and it's partly based on the settings they give to their privacy (which you have no control of). Crucially it's not data you have supplied, it's data your friends have supplied. 'Friends' can also be companies/websites. Let's say you communicate regularly with 10 people/'friends', probably 3/10 of those people won't have changed a single privacy setting on their Facebook account, will have location always switched on, they'll never clear their cookies / browser history.

You might not give your location, but the 10 people you communicate daily with, may give their location (this can be pulled from photos taken by the device), from that it makes a statistical guess. It may have a list of Wifi Beacons in a given area. Again it might not have read the list of beacons from your device, it may have read the list of beacons from a friend's device. This is a list generated by a device, just from walking down the street, where the phone attempts to connect to an open wifi service.

The shadow database is basically a collection of data on you, but not by you, formed from the lowest common denominator of privacy, in terms of everyone you communicate with. Think of them as a friend that blabs everything you say to them to someone else, unable to keep a secret, and how that data then gets back to you.

Facebook is using all these techniques, a lot of AI and a whole lot more to know everything about you, but doing so by still dutifully abiding by your own privacy settings. The problem is your Privacy settings are meaningless in the scheme of things, because the real data facebook collects on you (even where your own privacy settings won't allow) is based on what others provide (where their privacy settings do allow), hence your Shadow Profile.

It's a shame UK Politicians like #hashtag Amber Rudd (sorry, I'm sneering) are completely ignorant to how data sets are formed. If she did, she'd probably not have such a Gung-ho attitude to freely allowing security services + others to amass such datasets.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

i created a burner FB profile for Tinder. new pix, slightly different name (same age (: ). my phone, a near death wifi-only Android never left home. FB app had never been activated on that phone before. i never surfed anywhere while logged into this FB on my browser. never friended anyone from it.

yet within days i had tons of friend suggestions for people i did know, but barely. somebody’s cousin or mother for example.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

I don't see IP geolocation working that well. I live in Northern Ireland, and when I open Google Maps, it shows me a location in Northern Ireland, but not where my home modem is located.

Today, it's a village about 100km away. Yesterday, it was a different location entirely.

I've given Google permission in my browser to acces my "actual" location (actually, it's a fake location, generated by a plug-in). It doesn't use that until I click the circles icon, so I'm assuming it uses IP information initially.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

There is a database of the location of wifi routers by MAC. And as those databases are updated, it becomes obvious which ones are static.

And on android (at least as far as 5.1 - i've not tested higher) any app could read the MAC of the router the android was connected to. This was without granting special privileges, such as location details etc, in fact it works without granting any privileges at all.

I posted some proof-of-concept code here a while back, after someone accused me of lyng ("'cos someone on stackoverflow said it wasn't possible")

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

i created a burner FB profile for Tinder. new pix, slightly different name (same age (: ). my phone, a near death wifi-only Android never left home. FB app had never been activated on that phone before. i never surfed anywhere while logged into this FB on my browser. never friended anyone from it.

yet within days i had tons of friend suggestions for people i did know, but barely. somebody’s cousin or mother for example.

Actually, LikedIn shows the exact same behaviour. I created a new profile, pretty much blank. No CV, new contact details, different name, "joined" another company.

It took less than a day before it started to suggest, very focused, to connect to old colleagues.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

"Facebook is using all these techniques, a lot of AI and a whole lot more to know everything about you"

And what exactly they achieve ? They show me targeted ads ? I use adblock (as a generic term, not endorsing any product). They can sell my data to someone else to show me ads ? I use adblock. They think they can influence my decisions somehow ? They can't, see above adblock, and people who don't use it learn to completely ignore ads after about second week on the Internet.

They might know my location ? So do Mobile Network Providers and with way higher accuracy, and they're known to cooperate with local and international TLAs.

So the question is - with all that data what exactly do you think they can do or do already ? Real world examples please, spare nonsense about influencing US elections with facebook ads for members of US Congress.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

So the question is - with all that data what exactly do you think they can do or do already ?

Have a look at "Weapons of Math Destruction" by Cathy O'Neil as a pretty good example how your data is used.

Examples include targetted advertising for loans & cars, people in poorer communities will get adverts from more predatory companies. In most situations involving money you'll have been pre-judged with the data collected from your social media data

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

"Have a look at "Weapons of Math Destruction" by Cathy O'Neil as a pretty good example how your data is used."

I wasted an hour watching her talk at Google and it's not remotely relevant to my question and half of it outright laughable and for someone who is supposed to know about data sciences her examples are based on anecdotal evidence if any evidence at all.

"Examples include targetted advertising for loans & cars, people in poorer communities will get adverts from more predatory companies. In most situations involving money you'll have been pre-judged with the data collected from your social media data"

So absolutely nothing that can even potentially affect me in a real life. Thanks for confirming.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

Adblockers (probably) don't block sponsored posts, so companies can still put advertising in your timeline. These are still targeted.

Adblockers don't block Non-Sponsored posts, so FB can look at your profile and still put companie's regular posts (still counts as advertising) in your timeline. These are still targeted.

You may not believe that these affect you/that you ignore them but they do sit in the back of your mind - if nothing else as knowledge that a product, service or company exists. If FB get hacked, suddenly the hackers know everything about you and can use that for whatever nefarious purpuse they like.

The biggest mistake you can make is assuming that you're smarter than the people trying to get this information and monetize it. Being smart is fine until you're blindsided and nobody has a monopoly on ideas.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

> So absolutely nothing that can even potentially affect me in a real life.

They know your shadow profile is closely linked [1] to the shadow profile of someone else who was recently let go for being 'too ethical' and now your 'employ-ability rating' in that database of IT staff and contractors that doesn't exist is now a bit lower[2], ensuring your next job or contract is now a bit harder, and your chance of being head-hunted for mucho bucks just went to zero.

[1] Where link is geographic and social and political.

[2] Though if you join the Republican Party and the NRA you'll probably regain your status

So because a single anecdotal example doesn't happen to apply to you, somehow you conclude that no information about you, or the people you know, or the things you do, or relationships arising from statistical randomness can ever affect you?

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

That's because it makes sense. When you're developing this stuff you look at all the ways to collect such data, while staying within the law, it's that simple. Facebook is staying within the law.

The law needs changing, so that any data collected by any company ultimately abides by your own privacy settings, so that data collected by others (company or individual) is assumed to have the same privacy settings as you apply to your own data, if you are included in such data.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

So do Mobile Network Providers and with way higher accuracy, and they're known to cooperate with local and international TLAs.

Mobile networks do not have information on what you are interested in (all those lovely Facebook like and Facebook login buttons), most of the people you communicate with, etc.

As far as And what exactly they achieve ? the answer is "subvert democracy" and "subvert financial system". There is more money in that AFAIK. Facebook is long past the amount of data and knowledge which is needed to sell you another pack of junk food. The only reason to have more is to actually do BIGGER stuff like credit risk assessment, insurance risk assessment and political influence.

The political side is (finally) being looked at, but not in the detail needed. For example, Facebook has a known relationship with the UK Government Internet Troll farm (aka Integrity Initiative) - its name is on the annual accounts of the "charity" which finances it. Ditto for a few other usual suspects involved in political engineering. Anyone looking into that? Of course No. IMO that one is clear and the financial use case is more interesting. Someone needs to look with a magnifying glass into the partnerships it had with several banks and insurance companies.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

And what exactly they achieve ?

Sell the information on you. And it's who they are selling it to, and what those people want to use it for, that ought to worry you. Advertising is just a sideline - it's the restaurant that nobody ever eats in that acts as a front for the money-laundering racket...

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

They aren't showing you ads because you are blocking them. They are, however, showing a lot of other people ads because those people are not blocking them. And they're not going to male some special case for the people who do block ads: they track everyone.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

"with all that data what exactly do you think they can do or do already ?"

I consider this a red herring question. The issue isn't what that can do or actually do with the data. The issue is that they're spying on people. Collecting data about people without informed consent is not only wrong, it is utterly corrosive to society at large and the tech industry in particular. Even if they never use that data for anything at all.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

Well, it was a red herring question.

In the sense that while everyone being outraged by facebook collecting and selling data noone was able to produce single evidence of how that affects users whose data being sold. And why is it important ? Because that's the only way to explain people who overshare on facebook that they should not be doing it. But without real examples the typical conversation about this goes like this:

- OMG, you know that facebook sells all your data!!!!!

- OK, and what do they do with it?

- But it's your data !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They show you ads!!!!!!! And might know where you live!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- <shrug> So what?

"So what?" indeed.

But it's so good being outraged by something that has zero impact on your life, isn't it ?

p.s. and if you left your facebook account public, posted nazi memes and got fired for that it's not a facebook's problem, it's your psychiatrist's, don't blame the wall you chose to write your stuff on.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

"Because that's the only way to explain people who overshare on facebook that they should not be doing it."

True, but that not something I'm trying to do. At this point, I pretty much consider people who continue to use Facebook a lost cause, and I have reverted to primarily being concerned with self-protection.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

Anyone know if legal bods have started considering the GDPR implications of shadow profiles?

They’re clearly personal information about an identifiable individual; they have been gathered about that person without their permission, aren’t necessary to provide a service to that person and the individual has no way of finding out what data Facebook stores about them without joining Facebook.

To my untrained eyes there would seem to be a reasonable case that the very existence of these profiles is illegal.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

To my untrained eyes there would seem to be a reasonable case that the very existence of these profiles is illegal.

At a guess, maybe the "profile" never really exists since a lot of it can be inferred from other data (that presumably does have a legitimate source, e.g. friends), and as long as they never actually collect that data and stick it in an actual DB/file, then they can say "we don't store a shadow profile". So I suppose the question should be something like "Do you [Facebook] use or provide access to data about an individual that was indirectly collected or otherwise generated from other data".

@Dabbb This is why even with your own being careful about your data privacy won't necessarily help you. It could be that any bank loan or insurance applications you might make are affected by friended parties and their likes/dislikes. It isn't concrete information about you, but it could still affect you. The only way to avoid that would be to not have "friended" anyone... but then there's no point in using Facebook, so I assume you do have friended contacts.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

Well, they don't use them exclusively - they combine them with data from other sources.

I've commented before on El Reg about an interesting discovery I made when I looked at my ad settings on Facebook. To summarise:

I installed Plex on my phone at one point, in order to try it out - and it was listed there in my ad settings as an app I'd installed*. I do not have the Facebook app on my phone. Nor the Messenger app. Nor any other app from their stable.

* Along with TruCaller, which was foisted on me by WileyFox in an update. My gut is telling me that's the source of their data, but I can't say for certain.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

Your issue is likely related to domain graph.facebook.com where apps send metrics, and it's stopped by Blokada. Actually you would not believe how much stuff being sent to various tracking addresses from a dormant phone. My count is about 1000 tracking events per day for a phone just laying on a table whole day.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

Ah, okay - I assumed you were misunderstanding that I was talking about ad-blocking.

But either way, you are still missing the point. I wasn't saying "Facebook's getting data, how do I stop it?" - I was pointing out that there is more to it than shadow profiles built up from friends' data.

A more interesting side point is one of identification. Given that they know I installed Plex - the question isn't so much "how" as "how do they know it was me?" Remember, no Facebook app is on my phone; even if something on the phone is feeding data to Facebook, nothing on the phone knows my Facebook log-in details. It can't even be tied in via the email address, because the one I use for Facebook is unique to Facebook.

The answer is, I would guess, those shadow profiles. I haven't given Facebook my phone number - but you can bet one of my friends has allowed access to contact data. And if I'm right that the source of them knowing I installed Plex is that TrueCaller shite, I wouldn't be surprised if my phone number isn't amongst the data it's given Facebook behind my back. These two separate sources of phone number would enable the link to be made.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

How did you formulate the request?

If you asked about yourself, sure you got a No and it is "true".

If you asked about "person X" appearing on the photo from yesterday posted by Facebook luser Joe Average in the right top corner - Do not think so. They do. They do not need to perform the final identification to serve their customers. They need to supply all the relevant data about you, your family, where you kids hangout, where you cross the road, etc as well as enough data which will allow the customer to identify you themselves. Thus they can pretend that you are an "unknown" to them.

Unfortunately, the only one who can put sufficiently spiky gloves to grab the slimy eel and make it spit out the real truth about the "additional non-user related data" is a major government. Nothing less. That has not happened. Yet.

Speaking of puppets

And deflecting the conversation to avoid truth, what I heard Bob say was that "all politicians lie for a living" and you know it's true - whether they are puppets to a 2nd rate ex-communist or a far longer established banking community.

I'd say the puppet are the people who believe ANY of them. Partisans on either side (as if there were only two real sides of truth) - are the puppets.

"I care not what puppets sits on the throne as long as I control the money". Look it up. You might have to go back a few centuries.

Downvote away. the truth is never popular, which again, is why ALL pols lie, all the time.

Re: Facebook's shadow profile.

Herein lies the biggest problem of all: our politicians are nowhere near up to understanding what the problems are, let alone what or how much regulation is required to mitigate them. The sheer ingnorance of Rudd’s ‘hashtage’, or Burnhams “everyone should be made to register their email address”, or the fact that Blair didn’t know how to use a computer are jeered and treated as a joke (which speaks volumes about the press), whereas in reality, in this day and age they should disqualify the idiot in question from office because this shit really is serious.

People in Zuckerbergs position lie because it’s what they do; our elected representatives have no valid excuse for their ignorance. Something in the mechanics of how party politics works needs to change drastically to have any hope of politicians who are up to the task.

"this ought to be labelled an editorial."

Re: "this ought to be labelled an editorial."

Very true, but I'm not sure you realize that word "Comment", in front of an editorial, does not signify it to be an editorial to many readers in the US. I didn't realize it myself and I'm fairly well read.

Of course I would not dream of requesting an alteration in the standard form, seeing as this is a Brit publication written for Brits; Just wanted you to know there is some confusion going on across the pond regarding terminology.

"this is a Brit publication written for Brits"

Re: "this ought to be labelled an editorial."

"Comment", "Analysis", and so forth are all fairly standard ways of indicating that the article is about to delve into interpretation of the news, and they are common in American newspapers, assuming the paper is large enough to have the luxury of running them. They're usually on the front page of a paper's section.

Re: "this ought to be labelled an editorial."

Re: "this ought to be labelled an editorial."

No, "Editorial" is generally reserved for the editorial page. Again, not hard to figure out.

I currently live in Chicago, and have read over the years the Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, Cincinnati Enquirer, Indianapolis Star, Lafayette Journal and Courier, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and the New York Times. I await your ad hominem attack.

Seriously though, insisting that everyone else must share the same lack of knowledge as you is just strange.

Re: "this ought to be labelled an editorial."

Actually, "editorial" refers exclusively to content created by or specifically on behalf of the newspaper Editor in a specific column. Which is not the case here.

The most common term for newspaper commentary in the US is "opinion". Editorial is part of it. "Op-ed" is another subset of "opinion" that distinguishes non-editorial commentary written by regular columnists or guest writers (it used to mean "opposite the editorial" - literally published on the opposing page to the editorial). Another form of opinion published in newspapers is "Letters to the Editor".

If you can't extrapolate "opinion" from "comment", your English skills (US English or otherwise) need work.

Re: "this ought to be labelled an editorial."

Re: "this ought to be labelled an editorial."

"Very true, but I'm not sure you realize that word "Comment", in front of an editorial, does not signify it to be an editorial to many readers in the US. I didn't realize it myself and I'm fairly well read."

Maybe because US "news" is so liberally sprinkled with "commentators" that people are becoming immune the the meaning and can no longer tell "comment" from journalism and reporting.

Re: No one likes a lying asshole

Re: No one likes a lying asshole

But we've voted them into office in the UK and the USA - sure, we may not like them but we've given them control of everything because they've promised (lied) that they will fix everything. And it turns out that all they care about is getting reelected.

Re: "No one likes an asshole"

Correction: when considering those who voted for Trump, they like an asshole and, all those who still congregate on Facebook also like Zuckerberg/Sandberg assholes considering all the negative publications involving Facebook.

the more they don’t. while FB is due for a nasty time on this, i’m willing to bet nothing will happen in the long term. no Friendster, no Myspace, no Friends Reunited

- FB is a classic example of a network effect. leaving it for greener pastures would mean being on a scarcely populated social network. many of you may think that would be a good thing. but that’s just not how most people, except for us, reason nowadays.

- no provider much respects privacy. so while Zuck and co may be pondscum, who’s going to be the paragon of trust and virtue that most people can switch to? (yes, i can see earnest claims about peer-to-peer FB clones coming up...).

the best _likely_ outcome would be a serious fine (GDPR?) and a credible and factual commitment to keep data in-house. FB has a niche and is relatively safe, as long as it doesn’t commit enough criminal acts to motivate a breakup it can’t lobby itself out of and doesn’t earn itself a nasty enough reputation to wake up the slumbering sheep.

i don’t much like FB - been years since ive used it and my router blocks DNS on it. but I am cynical enough to doubt much will come out of this, with the exception of a share price dip.

(and, yes, i’ve had the same creepy friending suggestions happen to me)

But their sales and profits have continued to grow. Until either the law intervenes and breaks the Zuckerbook business model, or user numbers decline and the flow from the money tap slows, nothing will change.

Lying to the world, and ignoring the law have thus far been entirely without consequence for Zuck. As knife wielding ratboys in London have demonstrated, if there's no consequences to somebody's illegal actions, they'll continue with them. And as the flourishing drug trade shows, even where there are serious consequences, if the reward is high enough, and enforcement rate is low enough, the perpetrators will treat possible consequences as an acceptable business risk.

I'm not convinced that GDPR is seen as much of a threat. US corporations regard fines and legal action as a normal business expense. Zuckerbook's legal team will have wargamed the possible consequences, established that the fine won't actually be anywhere near 4% of global turnover (and will anyway bitterly contest it for years through the courts). And by the time the courts have required Zuck to halt the specific practice and pay the fine, the outfit will just wheel out a long-prepared alternative that has the same outcome in terms of slurping and selling user data, and it will again take the authorities years to wake up and challenge that, years to see it through the courts, and then the firm simply roll out Plan C - rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

The single most important tool regulators can have (and often do, but rarely use) is to suspend a business from new customer sales (ie advertising revenue in this case) and/or new user registration. If FB faced a threat of a one month suspension in all EU sales and a one month ban in signing up new users (complete with a sign up page that says "sorry, we're banned for a month for breaking the law"), that would have a far more cautionary effect on management thinking than a fine that can be treated as a below the line business expense.

<quote>FB is a classic example of a network effect. leaving it for greener pastures would mean being on a scarcely populated social network.</quote>

Would that be such a bad thing? How many of peoples connections on social media are genuinely friends and how many are passing acquaintances they haven't spoken to in years? I accept that getting rid of Facebook would be a challenge for a lot of people, especially since they got their claws in to so many sites as a logon provider.

I was very briefly on Bebo when the social network explosion started, never saw the appeal and deleted my profile. I am now in a situation where Facebook very probably knows a lot about me via people I know, but as I've never had an account I can't ask them to show me what they have (not that they would anyway)

Basically the network effect means that if you don't use Faecesbook then you aren't connected. I can't find it now, but in a security blog, I recall someone having done a little research into why students were all on FarceBork. It came down to, most are, most parties are only advertised there, so if you aren't onit you don't get to go to the parties - and if you don't go to the parties, you don't get much sex !

That's what FB has been working hard towards, as the article points out. By linking into everything, they make themselves such an integral part of online (and even offline) life that lots of people "can't do without it". As long as they maintain critical mass, then they can keep the "be on FB or be nothing" facade in place - and thus coerce people to using it. Only today I was looking at job ads, and for one company their only online presence was on FB - that's what FB want. If they can maintain that sort of thing, then they operate from a position of power - yeah you can be like one of those "oddballs" who lives without [ a bank | TV | electricity | whatever ], but "everyone" who's not a nutter uses FB".

I know we're not there yet, but I don't think it'll take too much more for Facebook's bubble to burst.

John Oliver did a piece recently on Facebook's role in conflict in Myanmar recently for example, largely due to hate speech not being removed either quickly or sometimes at all. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-un/myanmar-generals-had-genocidal-intent-against-rohingya-must-face-justice-u-n-idUSKCN1LC0KN

Re: Excellent article

Re: Excellent article

I deleted my short lived FB account created to market my books (NOT to share personal info, I even use a pen name). So I posted the article on Twitter along with other ones about FB and other web parasites.

Twitter is bad, Seems like least bad of SM if you don't use real name or an app and no personal info.

A 4% GDPR fine...

Multiplied by every lie Zuck & his ilk have ever uttered to an MP. If you have hardcopy from which to prove his statement was a lie, increase the 4% multiplier another notch upwards. How much money would he owe?

Crossing the Line

That was when FB, a simple social facility, following the decision of its bankers drooling over fees, agreed to list at US$100B+.

Then (1) the upper executive echelon inside FB were carried away in a total state of hubris and (2) they had to adopt one desperate measure after another to generate income to justify the hype, and the price. Item (2) was made easier because high-flying IT graduates* with the same dollar signs instead of irises flocked to FB and its incentive schemes expecting to get wealthy within 3 years or, hopefully, sooner.

*with apologies to the vast majority of IT graduates who maintain their prInciples.

I'm in some groups on MeWe. It has a cruder interface than FB, but is usable. Practically no "policing" of group content or online sales - most of my groups are firearm-related, which FB takes a dim view to. Actually, I think most of my groups migrated to MeWe from Facebook.

Re: From the writer

Re: From the writer

Again, unless @Fred West's name on his birth certificate really is 'Fred(eric?) West', then his handle tells us he is cool with taking the name of a serial murderer, which makes me think just a teeny bit less of him and anything he posts.

If you want to know what the term "Data fetishist" means....

“The President of the United States lies with impunity “... WTF does that mean??? First it is unfounded... getting tired of this rag inserting itself and taking shots at MY President. I just spent a week in London... you folks have your own problems... also watched House of Commons debate last week. They waynyou all speak to each other is interesting. I think you are the last to take pot shots at our President... worry about your own Country, politics and problems... adios Register ... what a bunch of ASSWIPES...

"“The President of the United States lies with impunity “... WTF does that mean???"

It's an English phrase which means he lies pretty much all the time and doesn't care.

We do have our own problems, we have our own right-wing, lying nut-jobs to deal with, but fortunately, we never made any of them our leader. But, even if we did, we Brits have the right to be able to speak about our leader as we want, especially if they were lying asshats, like the US president.

Being the leader of a country does not automagically make one good, right or honest, those principles come from the people themselves, Trumpy McFartface is none of those, and would be treated with the same disrespect by the British even if he was our leader, in fact, especially if he was our leader.

Don't think this is America bashing, this is just lying bastard bashing. There is a difference, although it may not seem like it.

so stop reading theregister.co.uk and read .co.us instead

Re: so stop reading theregister.co.uk and read .co.us instead

"Truther" means something rather different (and not at all complimentary) in the US post-9/11. It means people who believe that the 9/11 attack was orchestrated by the government. I don't know Trump's stance on this, but since there doesn't appear to be a whackjob conspiracy theory he won't embrace, it wouldn't surprise me if he were indeed a Truther.

The premise of this article is bullshit

Yes, they didn't want to become the next Myspace. Myspace didn't die because it didn't have diverse revenue sources, it died because it failed to control the spam (and probably malware) on its platform due to letting users be too free with how they presented their pages - it was a lot closer to the freedom you get from setting your own web site, as compared to Facebook where you fill in fields but Facebook has 100% control of the page layout and content presentation. Google Plus, Friendster etc. failed because they were too late, Facebook already had the network effect advantage.

Facebook was already making money hand over fist when they entered into these data sharing agreements. Simply put, they got greedy, grabbed for bigger cash, and are now busy making excuses having been caught with both hands in the cookie jar up to their elbows. Had nothing whatsoever to do with "insecurity" and fear that the whole thing will come crumbling down, it was just pure naked greed and nothing more.

Re: The premise of this article is bullshit

Re: The premise of this article is bullshit

Not unlike Google, which started out making massive profits and then realised that even more profit was the only direction to head. When there were down-dips in profit, they sought ways to solve those by becoming evil. I've seen, close up, a bunch of dishonest people baulk at nothing, not even their first stated principles, when the lure of huge riches is achievable.

Re: The premise of this article is bullshit

YouTube's over 50% spam now I'm sure. It's almost impossible to take videos seriously when every other video has some sort of $1 = 100 likes, paid subscribers, paid comments type of thing going on. SEO spam crap pumping the videos anywhere they want them. You can literally look at any CNN post with Trump in the title and see brand-new throwaway account with 500 thumbs up in a big circle jerk to do do whatever ...

user base

Lots of my relatives & friends use it (I don't - even though they keep asking me to as it is the main way they communicate), and because it has become so integral to their social life I would be surprised if they ditched it no matter how many nasty stories about FB hit the press (& as they get lots of their "news" via FB I doubt FB will be pushing stories about its scummy behaviour)

There is an interesting age profile on Facebook though, not much used by younger friends / relatives (though lots of them have a minimal account just so older family members can contact them), but they use different apps with their own generation ... but FB well aware of this - look how many other social media sites they have consumed, including big names such as Friendster, WhatsApp, Instagram. FB will aim to stay ahead by acquiring (or at least significantly investing in if takeover not possible) whatever shows signs of being the next big thing in social media that may compete with them*

* competitor being the key, so not e.g. Twitter, which fills a different niche to FB (indeed a vibrant Twitter is good for FB as it allows them to say they have not effectively monopolized the social media market)

No problems here

I detest this website (FB) and this company, principally because of its scumbag ethics. I deleted WhatsApp the day they bought it as I knew their assurances they wouldn't use user data were not to be trusted. Surprise.... I was right and they duly got a slap on the wrist from the EU (would be a much bigger one now, post GDPR). People I know, including my wife, just can't give it up. It's a vicious circle. A usage tax on services with near monopoly status might help regulate their use and mitigate some of the adverse social effects, but Facebook looks to me like a clear case for considering public ownership and (distributed) governance -- or v tough regulation as a utility. Uncle Sam will never do the needful under a Republican controlled govt, and maybe never.

Recently I discovered that my choice of new phone, if I bought one now, would be Chinese or Chinese. This was a bit of a penny drop moment. It followed my adding Aliexpress to my list of places to check prices on, and a few other such indicators (not just things one reads about in the Economist). Which leads me to suspect that the Facebook replacement may well be Chinese.

Re: Is this libel?

Only if it is not true.

Can you see FB being willing to test any of those claims in court? Opening up internal emails and contracts to prove they were clean and these are simply malicious lies? Opening code to show how they use IP and WiFi SSID information?

Re: Is this libel?

Are you sure? Truth is NOT an absolute defence against libel in England and Wales. The standard counter-example is that of a spent criminal conviction; referring to one of these without a good reason when discussing someone is considered libellous.

Proper trained journalists like El Reg's own staff will know this sort of thing well, and can probably give other examples.

Re: Is this libel?

I suspect the learned journalists that commit their thoughts to the pages of such a respected journal as this one are well aware of the libel laws in the UK and more so of previous case law such as Arkel v Pressdram (1971) .

I am willing to lay a wager that if a complaint was received from messrs. Zuckerberg, Moskovitz et. al then a similar response would be forthcoming.

Re: Who cares about lying nowadays?

This is why I could never be big in business

I just couldn't be bothered with the hassle. I really don't know why he doesn't just retire and enjoy the money and do something else with it. Start up another project that's less hassle. At least then, when Facebook fails, you don't loose all that money.

While all these different sites allow "Login with your Facebook account" it unfortunately will be around for a long time.

Z Register

There are four pictures of Mark Zuckerberg on the home page of The Register, three for this article. Nothing against his face--if anybody bothered to make a movie about me, they wouldn't require somebody as handsome as Jesse Eisenberg. Still, there comes a point of saturation. Yes, we distrust and dislike Facebook and those who run it. But even this close to the holidays, aren't there other tech stories?

A Christmas Carol

@disgruntled yank

But even this close to the holidays, aren't there other tech stories?

A Christmas Carol recounts the story of Ebenezer Zuckerberg, an elderly Anti-social Network Meister who is visited by the ghosts of his former associates Winkle and Voss, and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Zuckerberg is a changed man who, having seen the error of his ways, is driven to atone for his sins, disbands the company he created and uses all the money he has acquired for good causes

Pinocchio

Pinocchio is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel The Adventures of Zuckerberg. Pinocchio is known for having a short nose that becomes longer when he is under stress, especially when avoiding government committees across the world who want to question him about is ethics and business practices

Gelocation

"mixing in my home broadband IP address's geolocation"

While potentially a concern, geolocation DOES NOT identify the location of your broadband endpoint. It is based on the records of RIPE/ARIN/etc and is relative to the owner of each block of IP address, which is your ISP. So unless you live next door to your ISP, or own your own IP block, geolocation won't pinpoint your individual house.

In my case geolocation says I'm in the North of England, which happens to be where the offices of my ISP are - I actually live somewhere down the opposite end of the country.

Re: Gelocation

Absolutely true; occasionally I get "placed" in some other city as well, although most of the time geolocation seems to get at least the city right - and because of that, I would probably use that information as a starting point on which area's WiFi SSID records I should try comparing to those visible from a given user's phone, if I were working for Facebook.

My Facebook story

A couple of weeks ago, was in Home Depot with the Mrs., looking at counter tops and kitchen sinks. It was a spur-of-the-moment stop. We didn't talk to any sales reps, just browsed around in the store. We didn't make any purchases. For all intents and purposes, we weren't customers that day. She had her iPhone in her purse, but didn't use it at any time. My phone stayed in the car out in the parking lot.

On Facebook the next day, several of the ads I saw were for kitchen sinks at Home Depot. I can't recall seeing many Home Depot ads on FB before, and most certainly never saw an ad for kitchen sinks before, nor had ever posted anything about kitchen sinks. But somehow those bastards knew we had been in Home Depot and had been looking at kitchen sinks. Not sure who's the bastard in this case - Apple for tracking via the iPhone, Home Depot for providing location data to within a few feet even though we never touched any WiFi (if they even offer it?) or agreed to be tracked in their store, or Facebook for weaving all of those strands together to desperately try to make a few potential pennies off a click for something their algorithms said my wife had been perusing.

That really hammered-home the point that these fuckers are tracking our every move. If I were in the tin-foil hat brigade, I would say the gubermint doesn't need to build an Orwellian tracking and control system, the corporations have already built most of it for them.

Would you trust a spammer to defend you to the death from the government?

"I would say the gubermint doesn't need to build an Orwellian tracking and control system, the corporations have already built most of it for them."

Well, exactly.

And in response to the stock argument of "they're advertising companies and they're only going to use that information to spam me and I'll just ignore it/don't buy anything/whatever, so bring it on"...

Yeah, because when a government sees that those companies have saved it the work of setting up a surveillance service themselves, and legislates itself into the position where it can effectively demand whatever information it want from them under an intentionally vaguely-worded law... how likely do you think it is that those admen and marketing types who grabbed your information without asking just so they could make a few bucks by spamming you are going to defend it to the death?

Spoiler; of course they fucking won't. They'd be the first to hand over or grant access to it in a heartbeat if there was even the faintest prospect of them doing any time in prison or paying anything in fines.

Matter of fact, it would be quite likely they'd hand it over or grant easy access now and in the future for a nominal payment and the implied assurance that the government won't bother them if they keep doing what they're doing.

Truth = opposite of LIE .... not a different version of the last LIE you told. !!!

The 1st 3 paragraphs of this article should be printed on leaflets and the world 'Carpet bombed' with them.

Lying blatantly in your face is now accepted as normal.

POTUS has shown the world how you do it and it has been taken up with positive zeal.

I know that we have been lied to by people in powerful positions for 'always' but it is now so blatant and the lies are so obvious because apparently it 'Does not matter anymore, we all know that there are lies out there so don't bother trying to hide them !!!'

The US is where it is because of Lies.

The UK is where it is because of Lies.

France is where it is because of Lies.

... (add other countries of your choice here)

...

I have great hope for the future that this will all be sorted out by the people kicking out the lying politicians and forcing change.

Re: Truth = opposite of LIE .... not a different version of the last LIE you told. !!!

Actually, most people enjoy being lied to... until they find out

In Germany's "Guardian" these days (http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/claas-relotius-reporter-forgery-scandal-a-1244755.html) we see proof of the opposite: The best lies get awards, because they make such beautiful stories, much better than the soul numbing prose the real world etches into the lines below our eyes: The truth is so difficult and so complex, we simply yearn for something beautiful and simple.

That's why populists flourish and Facebook became an Internet supernova. Just because populist typically hang after a bang and supernovas leave nothing worth looking at, doesn't mean that history won't repeat.

I'll make to copy all the great tech stuff they open source and publish these days before they're gone; something else will crop up: Always does.

Delete the FB app..

McCarthy isn't a journalist, as the piece first attacks political figures (I suppose the last few American presidents have been liars, but then, any head of state around the world the last 20 years plus has been, as has almost every other elected official). We all love to beat up on Facebookgoogleamazon, and the proof of malfeasance, at least for Euro, will be evolution of GDPR. I expect many of these giants to receive their comeuppance.

I have managed to avoid putting the FB app on my phone, and when the news broke that they had bought WhatsApp I deleted that too. they don't have my true birthday, and I try to avoid putting anything but trivia on my timeline, although granted they can probably learn a lot from that.

Re: the best article I've read in 2018

Linking you and "Stan"

It's often remarkably simple: if Stan has your phone number in contacts on a device with the app installed, and he clicked the enticing-looking upload-contacts button, and Facebook has ever known that that phone number is you, then, well... it knows a link. Regardless of your consent.

Despite having an entirely blank location history in my downloaded data, no app installed for the past 5 years, and repeatedly detagging, removing any check ins etc. Facebook is still able to serve up "Amber Alerts" in an approximate location.

All because it has kept and retained over 10 years worth of IP address history, which apparently can't be deleted.

Irony and lies

First the irony...The Reg' has Faecebook "Like/Share" bottons here. Aren't they used to track people with or without Faecebook accounts, and so they now track Reg users too? How much does The Reg get paid to have those links here?

Delete your account and apps all you want. They still have your data, and they can still track you and sell your information. Heck they even track those without Faecebook accounts because every moron who signed in with their apps gave permission to their contacts information...names...phone numbers...home addresses... email addresses...birthdays and whatever other information you have stored into your contact info. So those who have never signed up for Faecebook, their information too has been taken and sold...including the information of children and your 90 year old great grandmother. That information is being sold too without their permission because you gave permission for them.

What does Faecebook say about the "ghost profile" information that they mentioned before? It doesn't exist. Another lie.

Lies lies and more lies. But then you signed up for it. But then too those who never signed up for it agreed to have their information sold. Once they get their information, it can never be removed, and they'll lie about having it.

Smoke and Mirrors

any good magician will tell you that it is very easy to fool most of us all the time or they would not have a job. I am not young and am somewhat tech savvy, so When people got excited about Myspace, Facebook and others of the sort., I chose not to partake. My rationale was simple- why would I willingly give away my privacy to someone else that I 1.)do not know. 2.)they are not saying what they do with my information and 3.)send me annoying messages all day long that I have to stop an important task to deal with, wasting my time and just irritating me to no end. I realize that I looked backwards and ancient as the fountain pen I still sign checks with when I pay my bills, but I had a quiet phone and I do not use allot of data on my cellphone plan which in turn lowered my cell phone bill and I got to keep more money where it belongs- in my pocket. Then came the leaks of data that compromised so many people that it became an epidemic. Now I look like a genius of the highest order just because I used a little common sense and asked the right questions. Once you see through the flash and look to see if there is any substance(and consequently find none) you go back to your quiet, though boring life thankful that you didn't dodge a bullet you did not have to.

Bah!

It is interesting to me that so many here instinctively grasp that Facebook information is never secure because of "shadow profile" concerns, yet so few understand that no matter how good a parent one is, one's children are for a large part of their day, under the influence and "data input policies" of others.

Every time I see a DINK or SINK argument about "I blame the parents" I grit my teeth and recall the stuff I got up to that my parents had no knowledge of, even though they were vigilant and quite conservative in their views on what their kids should be seeing of the world. As Bernard said in one episode of Yes Minister: "CBE - can't be everywhere".

The models of each situation seems congruent to me.

I've never had a Facebook profile, but am under no illusions that my every move is transparent to them on account of all the relatives I have that do. As for lying, I think that it has been well demonstrated by examples from history that no industry can be self-regulating from the viewpoint of the public, who get screwed over and then get presented with the bills when Things Go Wrong. The computer/social networking industry is no different to the auto industry or the legal industry, and its participants will move to protect themselves and increase their rewards at the expense of everyone else until forced to stop (or put in the position of asking for public monies to stave off disaster).

And yes, I believe that having a colossal liar in the White House is an enabling factor, raising the bar of what is acceptable until even a tall man on stilts could walk under it with no problem. No-one attempts to jump the bar any more, so the metaphor has been subverted and inverted almost without anyone noticing.

This is how world wars start. When you can say anything without needing to back up what you are saying, you can invent all sorts of outrages that must be stopped - by "reluctant" military intervention if necessary. All it takes is for the people in control of large economies to start thinking like third world warlords and its kit up for the third innings time.

hahaha

Just because Microsoft paid the Linux Foundation (slush funds; that’s all it takes to ‘join’) doesn’t mean that Microsoft suddenly “loves [GNU/]Linux” or that all is OK now. Just because Microsoft purchases Github and Alcatel doesn't mean Microsoft exclusively control's the Banking Regulation Authority. Michael Flynn will be 60 years old next week. He faces five years in prison. Let that be a warning to all of us. That’s what happens to people who tell lies. Whilst not everyone faces the same penalties for lying, it turns out. Mark Zuckerberg came to Washington last spring to talk about Facebook, the soul-destroying social media company that has made him a multi-billionaire. While in town, Zuckerberg stopped by Congress, where and you might want to have the kids leave the room for this, he lied! Thank god the US has had president's both past and present who have never told any lies at all. Erm wait a minute...

This means that every aspect in this matter of facebook, google, microsoft, every hack you can imagine, every mishap, derailment, in and with automation/IT/ICT is 100% predictable. Over 85% of all IT p[rofwssionals have no idea of that and 99.99% of all other professionals and government reps have no idea of that. That doesn't wave the 100% premeditation and legal responsibility of the issue for either Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Larry Anderson, or any big-time CEO governing any huge automation/IT entity. The same goes for every IT professional thinkable.

Automation/IT/ICT is 100% Predictable

That means simply put that every question from here and on, to any one, Mark Zuckenburg, is to be exact and you will force anyone to respond exact.

'Is it fact that all you are achieving with facebook is to harvest personal/company data of users for financial gain?' Answer: yes

'Is it fact that methods in and with facebook are programmed to 'lure/persuade' users to enter as much personal data as possible?' Answer: Yes

'Is it fact that the programming strategically is such that users are unaware of the proportional disadvantage of ownership of their personal data?' Answer: Yes

'Is it fact facebook is programmed to give people no choice of ownership within legal boundaries of the countries they reside in?' Answer: Yes

'Is it fact that facebook can be programmed to influence people to make choice or take stand to facebook programmed favor?' Answer: Yes

'Is it fact that third-party entities have access to personal data of facebook users without the explicit consent of the user?' Answer: Yes

Let it be simply clear. Entities like facebook and their income model is depending on gathering, harvesting and selling data and preferences. That is done by a programmable source. Not knowing and understanding the ancient and simple essentials of automation, creates an environment where people aren't asking exact questions so leaving room for verbal deflection.

It is simple. Digital entities are programmable. They only will function buy the grace of 100% exact, being predictive. So is facebook and Mark Zuckerberg is legally responsible and accountable wether he knows that facebook is 100% predictable and programmable or not.